Row escalates over origin of virus

• Republicans urge Trump to withhold funds unless WHO chief quits
• France says no evidence COVID-19 linked to Wuhan research lab

Tensions between world's top superpowers escalated yesterday as US President Donald Trump said that "a lot of strange things are happening" regarding the origins of the novel coronavirus and China strongly denied any anomalies on their part.

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Chinese scientists have said the virus likely jumped from an animal to humans in a market that sold wildlife in Wuhan, but the existence of a high-security biosafety P4 laboratory there has fuelled conspiracy theories that the germ spread from the facility.

The United States has now brought the allegations into the mainstream, with Trump saying that his government is seeking to determine whether the virus emanated from the laboratory in China.

"A lot of strange things are happening but there is a lot of investigation going on. And we're going to find out," Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US officials are doing a "full investigation" into how the virus "got out into the world".

The Washington Post and Fox News both quoted anonymous sources who voiced concern that the virus may have come -- accidentally -- from the facility.

US diplomatic cables seen by The Washington Post revealed that officials were especially concerned about inadequate safety standards related to researchers' handling of SARS-like bat coronaviruses in the high-security lab.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Friday rejected allegations that the lab was responsible for the outbreak.

"A discerning person will understand at a glance that the purpose is to create confusion, divert public attention, and shirk their responsibility," said Zhao, who himself promoted conspiracy theories the US army may have brought the virus to China.

Scientists believe the virus originated in bats before being passed to humans through an intermediary species.

But a study by a group of Chinese scientists published in The Lancet in January revealed that the first COVID-19 patient had no connection to Wuhan's infamous animal market, and neither did 13 of the first 41 confirmed cases.

However, France on Friday said there was no evidence so far of a link between the new coronavirus and the work of the P4 research laboratory in Wuhan.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that US intelligence indicates that the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in the laboratory in China, but there is no certainty either way.

On Friday's press briefing, Trump also cast doubt on China's death toll, which was revised up on Friday. China said 1,300 people who died of the coronavirus in Wuhan - half the total - were not counted, but dismissed allegations of a cover-up.

The US president said on Friday that many more people must have died in China than in the United States, which is currently the epicenter of the global pandemic and has reported the largest number of deaths in the world linked to the virus.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the sharp upward revision in China's coronavirus death toll was "an attempt to leave no case undocumented".

Trump has condemned the WHO for the support it has given to China's approach in the crisis. He suspended funding to the UN agency this week.

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans have urged Trump to condition US funding for the WHO on the resignation of its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus over his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Republicans have accused Tedros of being too willing to believe Beijing and of brushing off a Taiwanese warning on the ease of viral transmission.